The Leonardo Blog

Process owners, process steward, process custodians—many words you may have heard thrown around over the past few years. As the concept of process ownership is slowly getting traction across the board, organisations are appointing process owners more frequently than ever, and process ownership is starting to get included in role descriptions. Why is that? Why do you even need someone to manage a process when it is intrinsically the objective of a company to perform as best it can? Because each individual trying their best to make a company succeed is not sufficient anymore: there is a clear need to layout, measure, and improve processes systematically—and, for that, someone needs to be responsible for those processes. A wide array of definitions Let’s start with the necessary step of defining process ownership. Perusing the interwebs provides many definitions of the concept, some with important differences. Let’s take, as a starting point, 6 sigma’s definition, the broadest one identified: “Process owners are responsible for the management of processes within the organisation.”[1] Process Owners (POs) are responsible to manage processes. What does manage mean? This definition does not say. Then follows two definitions with conflicting elements, illustrating well the potentially confusing nature of the process owner. On the one hand, the business dictionary defines it as “[a] person who has the ultimate responsibility for the performance of a process in realising its objectives measured by key process indicators, and has the authority and ability to make necessary changes.”[2] On the other hand, we, at Leonardo, think of the role as more of a facilitator, where the process owner is accountable for responding when process performance is outside of the accepted range (or trending in that direction), and when a change of target is appropriate. A seemingly small difference at first, it is a crucial matter when it comes to practical applicability.

Readers in parts of the world where Christmas is celebrated (or is that selleberated!) well understand the rituals of giving and receiving. Santa Clause is checking inventory, supply chain managers are frantic, the transport pool is making final adjustments, and the naughty/nice lists are being debated and finalized. In other parts of the world, readers have their own celebration and remembrance festivals through the year. The giving and receiving of gifts, goodwill and grace are important parts of our lives. This has me thinking, inevitably, about processes. Yes, I know – sad, but true! It is common to say that business processes are the conduits through which every organization delivers value to its customers and other stakeholders. Therefore, business processes need to be thoughtfully managed and continuously improved to maintain an unimpeded flow of value. Many readers will agree that this is the essential premise of Business Process Management, the touchstone on which all other related process-centric management, governance, measurement and technology initiatives rely. However, this is not complete. This view of a one-way flow of value is a distortion of what actually happens. It is not enough to deliver value, we must always exchange value. Of course, every organization exists to deliver some form of value proposition to customers and other stakeholders and we see these documented in Mission, Vision or other statements of strategic intent. Business processes are the pathways through which we execute that intent. But it’s not a one-way street. Organizations, at least the successful ones, deliver value and they must also be receiving value in return. Organizations are not infinite value generators, content to stream out value endlessly and for no purpose. There must be a return path.

From many personal experiences, positive and negative, of encouraging organizations and their teams and people with the idea of process-based management, I offer some thoughts in this article about one very important aspect – it’s a mind game, not tool time. The achievement of effective, sustained process-based management is 90% mindset and 10% toolset. High levels of BPM maturity can only be achieved and maintained if the correct conceptual framework is in play. Too often we are focused on the 10%, at the expense of the 90%. The tools and techniques are critically important, but they are not the main game. Having the right IT and other tools is a necessary, but nowhere near sufficient, condition for success. Making the idea of BPM resonate within an organization requires deep engagement with the key challenges of contemporary management. If you don’t ‘think process’, you won’t ‘do process’. The likelihood that organizations, teams or individuals will adopt process-centric approaches to management depends on what they think will happen if they do.

If we are evangelists for BPM, if we are advocates for the power of process, what is it that we believe? What are the essential elements of process-based management that we hold to be compelling? These are not new questions. I have previously written in this blog about the critical need for organizations to determine and document the compelling reasons that are powering their particular BPM journey. These provide the bedrock necessary to sustain commitment during what will inevitably be occasionally difficult times along the way. For those of us for whom the process view resonates powerfully, we hold these truths to be self-evident. The reality is that for many people, this is simply not true. In their book Made To Stick1, Chip and Dan Heath describe the curse of knowledge as follows: “Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has “cursed” us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create the listeners’ state of mind.” I have recently read “Start With Why2” by Simon Sinek. The idea is simple but powerful. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” Read the book to understand the details of the Why/How/What insights. Suffice to say here that Dr Martin Luther King Jr changed a nation, and the world, by saying “I have a dream”, not “I have a detailed plan and methodology with accompanying PowerPoint”. The detailed plans, the How and the What, were important, but they were not the starting point. They were not what ignited a shared commitment to powerful and long lasting change.